International community must increase monitoring, election fraud is being prepared

In the election headquarters of some political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which will participate in the General Elections in October this year, the "kitchens" where attempts are being made to devise or refresh with novelties the methods of election fraud that have already occurred on the local political scene have been working overtime, the BiH news agency Patria (NAP) has learned from reliable sources close to the political structure in the country.

This practice is not new during the election process in BiH. Fraud has happened before. During the 2010 General Elections, only two candidates, Fahrudin Radončić (SBB) and Mladen Ivanić (PDP), both candidates for the BiH Presidency, were defrauded of about 150,000 votes.

Out of 215,000 votes, as many as 75,000 votes were annulled for Radončić, while for Ivanić, out of nearly 290,000 votes won from the citizens of Republika Srpska, about 74,000 were annulled, NAP writes.

Although election fraud will, obviously, occur in the elections that are less than two months away, which many analysts consider crucial for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the state lacks the mechanisms to deal with this huge problem.

Adis Arapović from the Center for Civil Initiatives (CCI) warns that the Election Law and criminal laws in BiH must be applied, which must punish election fraud most severely. The laws that currently regulate elections in BiH, he says, are quite flexible and cannot fully ensure the fairness of the electoral process.

And some political parties, Arapović further warns, knowingly break the law because they know the penalties are symbolic.

- Provided that they ever pay those penalties, because every report from the Central Election Commission is overturned in court - Arapović told NAP.

- In previous years, we have had frequent reports of election fraud, but none of those cases have been seriously prosecuted or have ultimately been overturned in court. This is further proof that the prosecutor's offices and courts in BiH are extended arms of the leading political parties - Arapović explained.

To correct this irregularity, this analyst believes, a completely new Election Law in BiH must be adopted.

- The existing law, although amended at least 18 times since its adoption in 2001, is now outdated and must be thoroughly changed. Criminal laws are also part of this issue. Because it is a criminal offense to steal from someone in elections, it is a criminal offense to steal ballots at polling stations - says Arapović.

The right to vote in this year's general elections in BiH, which will be held on October 12, belongs to 3,278,908 citizens. Of this number, 2,037,076 voters are registered in the Federation of BiH and 1,241,832 in the Republika Srpska entity, the BiH CEC announced.

Analysts believe that during the upcoming elections in BiH, the US Embassy in BiH, the High Representative of the international community in BiH, the OHR office in BiH, and other relevant domestic and foreign institutions in the country must be more involved, NAP writes.

Given that analysts, as well as politicians in their statements, emphasize that October 12 will be crucial for the further future of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is lagging behind in almost all social segments, representatives of the international community should urgently increase the monitoring of the election process from the moment polling stations open, through strict control of the counting of ballots starting from polling station committees, through municipal election commissions to the Main Counting Center of the CEC, NAP writes.